Loose Plugs

[hkestes41]

About 3 weeks ago, I pulled my 48 into the garage to put an Olddaddy brake kit on. Car war running great.

Finally got the brakes done after having to remove the internal residual valve in the master and replace with 10/2 pound externals. Also dropped my double flairing tool during the process and broke it. Needless to say between the residual valves, flairing tool, cold garage and my travel schedule this took way longer than it should have.

Took the car out to test the brakes and had a terrible miss. It was running really rough. Came back popped the hood and my #1 and #3 plugs were so loose you could wiggle them back and forth in the holes. A couple of the others were bairly finger tight. These plugs have been in for about 18 months and have several thousand miles on them. Cleaned the plugs tightened them back up and it is running fine again.

The car spent the 3 weeks in the garage and I know nobody else messed with it during that time so how did I go from running great to having loose plugs and missing like crazy? Anyone else ever have plugs come loose all of a sudden? I'm baffled.

[JIPJOBXX]

Sounds like a job for ghost busters! But really the only way those plugs would get loose is either you didn't tighten them enough last time or someone is messing with you. I would just forget it for now and just hope whatever happened won't happen again. I myself think that someone is messing with you.

[JBNeal]

I read somewhar that final torque should be applied to a warm engine. I've also heard that some guys will put more material on the spark plug threads by wrapping them with a layer or two of aluminum foil.

[greg g]

there was a report of mice with ratchet wrenches seen hangin out by you garage.

A couple weeks ago my daughter called and said her car (94 Honda) just mad a popping sound and started running horribly and making a popping noise. I grabe a light (of course it was at night) and some basic tool and went to where she was. Opened the hood and found number 1 plug still connected to its wire laying ober by the battery.

Checked it out and the threads looked fine, with no evidence of head threads or anything on them. so I put it back in, and she started the car and it was runing fine agian. I pulled the other wires and found 2 of the other three loose. That was a month ago, and there had been no re-occurence. Those plugs were put in Thanksgiving weekend a year and 12000 miles ago. Mice with ratchet wrenches were noticed in our neighborhood also.

I always go snug then another 1/4 turn. gotta be careful with these aluminum heads.

[mikesinky]

i had a s10 that did the same thing. was running fine then big popping noise and then sounded like i had an exhaust leak. plug had blown out of head and still had the wire attached put it back in and never had anymore problems. checked all of them and there were a few more that were loose.

[JohnS48plm]

Greg, your daughter sounds like my youngest. She always brings me her car problems when it's getting dark and usually when it's below 40F outside. She has a 1996 Saturn with 140000 miles and I'm hoping she gets rid of it when she starts her new job in Feb. JohnS

[P-12 Tommy]

i had a s10 that did the same thing. was running fine then big popping noise and then sounded like i had an exhaust leak. plug had blown out of head and still had the wire attached put it back in and never had anymore problems. checked all of them and there were a few more that were loose.

The only time I heard of a plug blowing out of the head was the 5.4 Triton Ferd motor doing that.

[Plymouthy Adams]

A plug sometimes will get loose due to the aluminum compression ring and if it has ever been torqued more than once..on a castiron head this is not as likely as on an aluminum head..I have seen many of these loose over the years..run them down and then torque, see attached website for guidance:

http://www.nology.com/torque.html